


to ev'ry rose a thorn

by handschuhmaus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Misogyny, Questionable alcohol use, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-11-14 00:43:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18042197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: an alternate universe where there is at least one exception to Yoda's lineage being all male, and with very few exceptions, the Sith since Bane are mostly female...an IGBC annual meeting plagued by crime makes for quite the Jedi mission...





	1. Chapter 1

There are whispers in the halls, not just among the padawans, about the suitability of not difficult, willful Qui-Gon, but herself for the lineage (Yoda's lineage), and Jocasta Nu has a pitying look for her. 

Qui-Gon frowns but doesn't object, has been told not to until it was drilled into him, and resumes her side like a puppy. A diplomatic mission once, one of her first, had involved a cultural class that covered gender stereotypes, contrasting the modern, if depreciated, expectation that men be ever calm and logical, women more fallible, mercurial, hysterical and old old views that women were cold and dark and dangerous, men bright and virile. They, the pair of them, Dooku thinks, are a bizarre anachronism. 

Neither really fits in the Order and yet here they are, the Grandmaster's pupil and her wayward Padawan. Dooku is as snow and ice, learned quickly not to allow even the guarded friendships she was inclined to. Jinn does not learn such lessons well, even though he is bright in other respects. He would happily give his heart away to any and all comers, but has finally learned this is inappropriate among the Jedi.

And yes, there are women Jedi among the thousands. Except for precocious skill at fencing and Yoda's whim, she would probably be among them: mostly holding little authority, treated more permissively when it came to matters of romance but less when it came to the possible children, almost never star diplomats or warriors but merely the hardworking mortar holding the Order together, a level above the droids.

"A mission I have for you," Yoda informs them, right here in the hall. "Its annual meeting the Intergalactic Banking Clan is hosting. Among a diplomatic party of knights to help ensure a peaceful mission you will be."

"But why?" Qui-Gon asks. "The IGBC is a single organization; surely its inner squabbles could be settled with mediators."

"Too late we learned that a Sith artifact purchased on auction was. And a series of violent crimes there have been. Jedi necessary are."

"But do not fear, young Padawan," says Dooku's once rival and a man she now refuses to name, a potential Council member nonetheless. "Your role will not be to seek out criminals. You will be the pure diplomats of the party."

Dooku grits her teeth silently at this: she has little patience for being diplomatic towards arbitrary bankers, and Qui-Gon was much too impulsive and willful to make a decent diplomat among such beings. If the Kaleesh war flared up again, perhaps he might help with that, but when the cause of an argument was stubbornness over idiosyncratic pride?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to write ahead on this one (more as a change of pace than anything else, I suppose) but the good news is that Chapter 2 is 95% complete and should be out sometime in...oh, the next month or so.


	2. Chapter 2

Whatever organizational lackey is assigning Jedi must not have heard about their purported "purely diplomatic" role. And it seems the individual they are meant to be assigned to was not eager to have a Jedi bodyguard. Or maybe it is simply the prospect of being attached to a Padawan.

"But Miss Damask, we suspect there has been Sith activity--" the IGBC servant is explaining to the person they were intended to guard.

"It's _Magister_ Damask," the Muun corrects, "and I don't particularly care. I will not have my privacy invaded purely because the Jedi Order wants to scare up some boogeyman out of the past."

"Madame, this is serious. There have been a series of murders."

"I have no intention of letting myself be murdered. Do you seriously think this venue would have insufficient security?" Damask sniffs irritably.

"Madame," says the master who has been put in charge of the mission, and laces his voice with the mind trick "we must insist you take on a Jedi bodyguard. In fact, we have assigned you a woman."

Dooku indulges in a split second angry grimace at this audacity and the assumption that a woman would make the banker happier, before plastering an agreeable if neutral expression on her face and approaching Magister Damask. 

"You are...?" Damask asks supercilliously.

"Knight Dooku." she responds, one hand resting on her saber hilt.

"Padawan Jinn," Qui-Gonn offers, and bows. He seems slightly in awe at the Muun's height; he has shot up like a proverbial weed in a way that suggests he will excede Dooku's 5'11" within a few years, but Muuns are generally tall and lanky and Damask is no exception, probably half a foot or more above Dooku.

"Very well." Damask allows, and the other Jedi hurries off, his work here done. "You understand that as Muuns we eat privately, and there will be no grand dinner as you may be expecting."

"Understood," Dooku nods, and they follow Damask to the Muun's suite. 

"You may--bed down in here, I suppose," she says, indicating the suite's living room with a pair of couches. "I value my privacy."

Another uninteresting bodyguard job, unless there's a murder attempt. Dooku sets to verifying that the bedroom is secure (not really, but about as well as can be expected) and there are no other entries to it from the building interior at least. Qui-Gon investigates their packs, trying to find unobtrusive, and therefore room temperature, food for while they are in the Muun's company. 

"I have been saddled with Jedi," Dooku overhears, outside Damask's door, and it intrigues her enough that she keeps listening. There is no audible reply, not even a murmur when she strains to hear with the Force. "Be careful. No, I don't believe you can't secure yourself but it might endanger us. I'm serious." Then Damask leaves off, and anyway there is a knock on the suite door.

Dooku checks the viewing cam and sees that it is merely another banker Muun, carrying a shot glass and a bottle of wine, but places her hand in readiness upon her saber nonetheless as she opens the door. No one had seen fit to offer them any details on the murders.

"Miss Damask," he says insistently, and doesn't acknowledge Dooku. After a moment, Damask comes out in a dressing gown, eyes narrowed.

"You'd better be careful," he says in a patronizing voice. "There have been five killed."

"In three days, yes, I know," Damask rolls her eyes at her fellow banker.

"Larch told me I had to give this to you, or I wouldn't have. I won't next year," he hands Damask the bottle of wine, and then turns around.

"With all due respect, we should check that for poisons or other drugs," Dooku points out, placing a hand on the bottle.

"Poison hasn't been the murderer's modus operandi," the Muun counters, looking interestedly at the label. 

"Still, we don't know if the..." Dooku was inclined to dismiss them, much as Damask had earlier, as boogeymen, but really there could be other threats besides the murderer, "Sith might attempt to poison you."

"Here," Qui-Gon says, holding out a drinking cup from their mess kit "our tableware has been packed with us and can't have been tampered with."

"A Jedi cup, hmm?" Damask takes it from him and looks at it with mingled amusement and distaste. "How long will it take you, O Knight Dooku, to pronounce Larch Hill's excellent wine safe to drink?"

"Give me five minutes," Dooku says, hedging on the likelihood that it isn't poisoned and a quick analysis with a materials scanner plus her Force senses will pick up any common poisons. Even if Damask is reluctant about their association, she hasn't given the Jedi reason to particularly want to irritate her.

The Muun reclines onto the sofa on which Qui-Gon has not placed their bags and bedding rolls, and contemplates the cup. "Tell me, is it true that Jedi can shrug off the effects of ethanol?" she asks impishly, as Dooku carries the wine back over. 

"There's some truth to it, yes." Not that Dooku has much experience, or Qui-Gon any. She always prefers to feel the effect of alcohol as she drank it, but is relatively controlled in her drink intake. Only in the case of two hangovers (one egregious, one mild that happened to coincide with a headache of an assignment) has she tried it. 

"Well, you're sharing the bottle with me," and Damask pours for herself first, and then for Dooku. 

The Jedi tastes the wine from the mess cup and finds it quite good, only to realize that Damask is pouring a third glass, her own still all but full.

"He's only--" she protests, and Damask stops pouring— there is about half an inch in the smaller cup, but hands it to Qui-Gon, who, of course, immediately tastes it. 

"Wine is...weird," he pronounces, but takes another sip.

Damask laughs and drinks a rather large mouthful, while Dooku eyes her Padawan and grudgingly allows "I'll consider this an educational experience, but you're getting no more and you're not doing it again till you're of age."

Damask finishes the full-to-the-brim cup and a second half cup at the same time as Qui-Gon finishes his tasting and sets down the cup with a couple millimeters of wine remaining. Dooku still has a third of her original amount left; the stuff is clearly fine wine which she'd prefer to savor and it's beginning to concern her that Damask is drinking so fast.

"Drink up, we're going out," the Muun announces, to the surprise of both Jedi. 

"Is this...place suitable for persons of my Padawan's age?" Dooku asks, not sure she will trust the answer. But in any case, it is not the role of a Jedi as bodyguard to question why, and Qui-Gon will probably end up accompanying them anyway. She takes another drink; it is rather a shame to waste any of this.

"Oh, egregiously! Whether he'll understand it is another matter, but he'll be fine," and Damask breezes back into the bedroom with its closets.

When they—Damask in fresh attire—get out onto the streets, Dooku's doubts recur at the sight across the way of a number of the rest of the bankers (scattered with Jedi) congregating outside an adult club waiting for it to open, and it is not one her intuition suggests is of the better variety, where the workers are paid and respected. Rich people getting their way, in unsavoury fashion.

But Damask walks past them, to enter a library, and then its reception hall, already dotted with people. 

After some minutes, a speaker takes the podium to considerable applause, a bowed Mon Calimar, and begins, to Dooku's puzzlement but relief, "The flowers of the muja fruit bush, the jahranda bird, they all _change_..."

Damask listens raptly, not appearing drunk, and even scrawling notes with a stylus on a datapad. Qui-Gon is apparently enraptured after the speaker has the first colorful bird brought in to demonstrate a point. About all Dooku can make of it is that it's a biology talk connected with reproduction, genetics, and their manifestations in different lifeforms; she doesn't understand much beyond that and surely Qui-Gon doesn't either. But it is still an educational experience in a better sense than she'd hoped for.


End file.
